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Dean didn’t notice the note until he’d already poured almost an inch of coffee into his mug. He frowned down at it before pulling it out and flicking it over the sink in an effort to get rid of the excess liquid. The ink ran and blotched causing Dean to grimace as he unfolded the note.
I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let’s buy it.
Dean’s eyebrows shot up as he read the note, or, rather, poem. He set it down on the counter and patted it with a paper towel, then reread it. He rested his hip up against the edge of the counter and folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t know anyone in the office who would send such a thing to him. The few women he worked with were involved in one fashion or another or otherwise uninterested in Dean specifically or men in general, and the same could be said for the men, at least as far Dean knew.
Dean sighed, folded the note into a dry paper towel, and filled his mug with fresh coffee. He slipped the note into his jacket pocket and headed back to his desk. He flipped open the previous day’s reports and started skimming through them, biding his time until Cas showed up, huffing quietly as he dropped his briefcase onto his desk.
“Cas, man, ‘bout time you got here. I’m bored,” Dean groaned as he leaned back in his chair.
Cas glanced over at him and smiled the small, curling smile that Dean had come to love. “The day has just started, Dean. How can you already be bored?”
Dean shrugged and grinned back. He supposed he understood the poem left for him, for he would give anything to kiss Cas.
I want to hold you close like a lute,
so we can cry out with loving.
Dean swallowed heavily. Well, that hardly lacks subtlety, Dean thought with a blush. This note, the fourth one he’d been given, had been tucked into the brief that Dean had left sitting on his desk with the intention of reviewing before the meeting. He hadn’t had time and now he was sitting in the meeting, Cas behind him, reading another love note, this one a touch more inappropriate than the previous ones.
He folded the note in half and reached for his bottle of water, turning his chair slightly to see if Cas had noticed the note. Cas faced the current presenter, but Dean could see his eyes drifting, gaze unfocused as he wandered about in his own head. He felt Dean’s stare and turned his attention on Dean, raising an eyebrow in question. Dean grinned and rolled his eyes in commiseration before pretending to turn his own attention back to the meeting.
He traced the edge of the note with a finger and wondered what it would be like to press his body to Cas’s, to move with him, to breathe with him, to hear the sounds he would make. Dean sighed and slid the note back into the pages of the brief.
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.
Dean found the note tucked under his windshield wiper, and he sighed as he read it. It was one thing to find professions of attraction and lust- the others had been devoted to descriptions of desire- but love was another matter entirely.
Dean tossed the note onto his dashboard. He ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath before he backed out of his parking spot and headed home. After dinner, Dean settled in front of his computer with the note and typed the lines into Google. The poem, thankfully, was well known despite being an English translation of a Persian poem. Dean spent a few hours reading through works belonging to the poet Rumi (his admirer’s apparent favorite) as well as other Persians, finding the lines from the other notes left for him in various pieces by various authors.
Later, in bed, Dean studied the note, trying to determine who might have written it. He didn’t recognize the handwriting, but it also had a sense of deliberateness about it. Dean guessed the writer had altered their handwriting to keep from being recognized, and since Dean knew most everyone in the office, anyone could have written the note and Dean would have known who it was. Dean set the note on his bedside table and turned off the lamp. He slid down in his bed to sleep, but found himself staring into the darkness, his mind wandering.
Cas was the only person in the office who seemed like he would appreciate this sort of poetry. Cas, however, had never shown any interest in Dean. Never flirted, never paid him more attention than anyone else, never touched Dean, not even casually. Cas didn’t do those things with anyone, and Dean had never seen him outside of work or at a work-related function. He knew Cas had dated in the past, had been in relationships with both men and women, but he didn’t know how Cas behaved in such relationships. He wouldn’t know how Cas behaved when attracted to someone. Dean sighed and tried to give up the mystery for the night. Whoever it was would leave off or reveal themselves and until then, Dean couldn’t do much more than wait.
Dean dug through Cas’s desk drawers, looking for the document Cas had asked him to grab, grumbling under his breath. He had never pictured Cas as the messy type, but clearly he did not know Cas as well as he had thought. Finally, Dean found the file and snatched it out of the drawer. Below it sat a small red book. Dean glanced at the title out of curiosity and froze.
He reached into the drawer and pulled it out, taking note of the numerous tagged pages. He opened the book to one of the bookmarks, read for a moment, then switched to another. He read a few more before he dropped the book back into Cas’s desk, a smile spreading across his face. He slid the drawer shut, a plan already brewing in his mind as he headed back to the conference room. He grinned at Cas, delighted when Cas smiled back even as he raised an eyebrow in question.
The next morning, Dean folded the note he had written at home in half and scribbled Cas’s name on the front. He centered it on Cas’s desk and then settled in at his own desk to wait.
Cas came in on time, glancing over at Dean with a warm smile. Dean returned it and ducked his head down, looking up at Cas through his eyelashes to watch. Cas spotted the note and picked it up to read it. He went still, eyes widening. He looked up at Dean, then down at the note again. Dean couldn’t help grinning wider. Cas set his briefcase down on his desk slowly then lowered himself into his chair. He read the note one last time before turning his attention to Dean.
Dean drew the moment out before finally looking up and cocking an eyebrow at Cas.
“How’d you know?” Cas asked.
Dean smirked before answering, “I found the book. When I was looking for the report yesterday.”
Cas sucked in a sharp breath. He looked down at the note. “You’re not- Do you mean it?”
Dean smiled, shrugged one shoulder. “Well, I haven’t spent as much time with you as I’d like to know about true love, but, yeah, Cas, I am definitely going to run after you.”
Cas gazed at him, his eyes going glassy before he finally smiled, a broad, wide smile that showed his gums and lit up his face-
Dean thought that the true love part wasn’t so far off after all.
An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: for loving a true love.
Legs: to run after.